


an upending of roots

by paradoxicalconverse



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: F/F, character study????
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-08 15:27:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18626020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paradoxicalconverse/pseuds/paradoxicalconverse
Summary: She knows what Wynonna would say if she found out. What she would do. Kick dirt in Nicole’s face and scream, upend the roots she’s so desperately learned to nourish in the soil so as the distract the rotting of her heart’s own.





	an upending of roots

**Author's Note:**

> what's up I'm back and you can find me on [tumblr](https://please-say-nine.tumblr.com)

She knows what Wynonna would say if she found out. What she would do. Kick dirt in Nicole’s face and scream, upend the roots she’s so desperately learned to nourish in the soil so as the distract the rotting of her heart’s own.

She never understood why replanting roots could ever permanently damage until now.

Callused hands draw rivets in the dirt that bear too strongly a resemblance of the path a tear makes, so she fills them with seeds and covers them up until they’ve disappeared beneath the ground.

Out of sight, out of mind.

God, did she wish it worked that way.

The carnations have just begun to poke their heads from the ground, small and shriveled and begging for water that Nicole wished she was too heartless to give. It would be so much easier to let them die, but roots don’t work that way.

There’s dirt under her nails and the water burns a bit too much when she washes them in the kitchen of the Homestead. She lets them soak for a tiny bit longer.

There’s still dirt under her fingernails when she dries her hands off.

Wynonna would find out come full spring; the flowers would bloom and Nicole would have to remind herself why she’d done it in the first place to keep from upending her own roots.

It had been years now. The first few had been the roots twisting against her rib cage to leave her breathless during the night, hand reaching out to the cold side of the bed.

The next set of years had been the water; the roots had been desperate for any sustenance and have taken to squeezing out every last drop of her that remained until she was soaked in sweat and the pillowcase was damp beneath her when she woke the next morning.

The other side of the bed was always cold.

The finals years had been the rot; those were the hardest.

Nicole had plunged herself deep underwater in an attempt to release the vines from her ribcage; her head would sink under the horizon for days at a time.

The the roots that had entwined themselves with her ribcage started to loosen their hold. And then rot.

She could feel it in her lungs, every morning, as the accumulation of what had died the night before crumpled into her airways. Midday came and dried her all out. And then there was night, when the rot became the most noticeable.

It was the rot that made her reach her arm across the bed, every night, in a saving grace of warmth, and the rot that made her arm slither back when the sheets were cold and lifeless. 

So Nicole had done what she had to do; she gave the roots a new home. 

The Garden had taken Waverly, but maybe it wasn’t so bad that Nicole had let the one out back take her too.

**Author's Note:**

> :')
> 
> kudos and comments make the author happy


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